After the last linux.conf.au, and my going to the arduino miniconf, I got (voluntarily I guess :) conned into learning about a new field: arduino. The learning curve was a bit steep since I started with the second miniconf which featured a pretty sweet board, the mobsendat one of the volunteers had just designed.
Mobsendat (mobile sensor data) offers pretty good IO that's useful to log to its built in sdcard: a DS18B20 1-wire temp sensor, a barometer (with 2nd temperature reading), a 3 axis accelerometer, and connectivity for a GPS, a 433Mhz radio chip, and a Zigbee chip, all this for barely over $100. It was designed to be put in rocket bodies to record the flights, but I figured I'd find other uses for it :)

I got to solder the whole thing during the miniconf:

all done

Putting aside some problems due to a short in my board that came from a pre-soldered chip (not my fault :) ), it worked great. I was even able to hack in a dirty mod to let me unplug the GPS when I don't need it

Programming with arduino was reasonably easy. I haven't done much work on that specific board yet, but I have on the other one (next post).